Tear gas, hate speech marks 14th yellow vest protest

Paris, Feb 17 Police fired tear gas and brought in water cannons and a horse brigade to disperse several thousand yellow vest protesters Saturday massed near a Paris landmark at the end of a march through the French capital, the 14th straight weekend of demonstrations.

Anti-Semitic remarks hurled by a few at a noted philosopher on the protesters' route were the bitter finale to a day of tension.

In Rouen, in Normandy, a car blocked by demonstrators pushed through the crowd, slightly injuring four people, the all-news channel BFMTV reported.

Police used tear gas and water cannon in Bordeaux, a stronghold of the yellow vest movement, and other cities on the 14th straight Saturday of protests.

Another demonstration in the capital was planned for Sunday to mark three months since the movement held its first nationwide protests Nov. 17.

In Paris, an array of insults, some anti-Semitic, by a handful of yellow vest protesters targeted a well-known French philosopher, Alain Finkielkraut, underscoring excesses that surge within an increasingly divided movement with radical fringes.

President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that "the anti-Semitic injuries he received are the absolute negation of what we are and of what makes us a great nation."

The president's was among a chorus of tweets, with Interior Minister Christophe Castaner denouncing "the surge of pure hate," while government spokesman Benjamin Griveau tweeted that "the ugly beast lurks in the anonymity of the crowd."

The insults included words like "Zionist!" and "Go back to Tel Aviv!" and "We are France!"

Finkielkraut once showed sympathy for the movement but criticized it in a recent interview with Le Figaro daily. Some yellow vest protesters have expressed racist or anti-Semitic views online and on the sidelines of protests.